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All is not fair in love or The Bachelor. One minute, you’re laying out the order for your engagement ring (cushion-cut with diamonds all around the band); the next you’re climbing stone-faced into an SUV knowing that your “soul mate” has chosen two other women over you.

That was the fate of AshLee Frazier on Monday’s “fantasy suite” episode, as Sean Lowe opted to keep Lindsay Yenter and Catherine Giudici around for the season finale.

Sean himself described his bond with AshLee as “probably the strongest relationship I have.”

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By contrast, Catherine seemed the least ready for marriage of the three women who travelled with Sean to Si Kao, Thailand: an impression planted in our minds (and Sean’s, apparently) on the hometown date when Catherine’s own sisters questioned her commitment to her hunky blond suitor.

I guess we should all know by now that things are never what they seem on The Bachelor.

Indeed, there were subtle clues about the elimination right off the top of the episode in the language Sean used about each woman.

He talked about the “spark” he shared with both Catherine and Lindsay.

With Catherine, he said, “I feel completely natural around her, I feel like I could be myself 100 per cent. I could easily picture Catherine and I cuddled up on the couch at the end of a long day and kids at home. It seems like a really sweet life.”

Lindsay, he said, is “one of those girls who never seems to have a bad day and I love that about her.”

Talking about AshLee, Sean was complimentary but a little more impersonal.

AshLee had “all these amazing qualities any man would want in a wife,” Sean said.

And “to know someone I like so much is in love with me is humbling,” he added.

“When I picture my future with AshLee I picture the two of us living in Dallas, a nice little house with kids running around. I mean it’s the American dream.”

Perhaps, but it wasn’t Sean’s dream.

To be honest, I found it a bit disconcerting how fixated AshLee was on Sean and how seemingly ready to put all her hopes of future happiness in his hands.

But still, I figured she was final two material and the show’s producers did little to dissuade us of that throughout Monday’s episode.

Here’s how the dates went:

Date No. 1, Lindsay: Even at this late stage of the game, Sean couldn’t resist testing his potential fiancees. As they set out for Si Kao Market, Lindsay told Sean she’d try anything except eating bugs. So, of course, they ended up at a stall with plates of fried larvae and grasshoppers. Gross.

Even though she looked like she was going to barf, Lindsay downed one of each.

“For a brief moment I considered not eating the bug and then I saw how brave Sean was, and if he can handle it I can handle it,” said Lindsay, which kind of made me want to barf.

“I want to live a fun, exciting life and I need an adventurous partner, and Lindsay is exactly that. Every moment I spend with Lindsay I’m getting closer and closer to falling in love,” said Sean.

Next up was a romantic interlude on Yong Ling Beach, no insects in sight.

And then they fed grapes to adorable little monkeys, and stood in the surf and kissed with a golden sun setting majestically behind them.

There was more eye candy in store at dinner as the pair ate in front of traditional floats that looked like miniature temples and were lit up in vivid reds and purples and blues and greens.

It was all so perfect, except that Lindsay wanted to tell Sean she loved him and couldn’t quite get the words out.

She did say she was willing to move to Dallas to be with him and was excited “for our life to start.”

“Being engaged would be fun and then picking out a house with you,” Sean said.

But first there was the little matter of the fantasy suite. Lindsay read out the date card, the one that says, “Should you choose to forgo your individual rooms please use this key to stay as a couple in the fantasy suite.”

That meant “no distractions, no interruptions, just you and me,” Sean said and Lindsay was game for that.

Once they’d settled in, Lindsay finally coughed up the L-word, right after Sean had once again told her she could be his “best friend.”

“It feels so good to hear Lindsay tell me that she loves me. It brings me closer to her,” said Sean.

Date No. 2, AshLee: Bugs, shmugs. AshLee’s test was more physical than just choking down a couple of creepy crawlies. After setting off from PakMeng Pier in a boat, AshLee and Sean had to swim through a dark, confined cave to get to a private beach.

Sean said it was about AshLee learning to give up control because “I want my wife to be able to trust me in certain situations and today I need to figure out whether or not she’s capable of that,” but even he got frightened swimming around (with a float) trying to find the way out.

AshLee managed to turn the ordeal into a life lesson about trust since “when you’re with the person you love you’re going down this dark alleyway,” which makes love sound like about as much fun as a mugging.

“What scared me here is taking a risk and not knowing the outcome. What if he says, ‘You’re amazing and you’re not the one’?” AshLee asked presciently.

But by the time she and Sean were standing in the water kissing, AshLee declared that, “I don’t feel like there are two human beings that belong together more than him and I.”

At dinner, in a private hut on the beach, AshLee was already thinking ahead to the engagement, but there was a blight on her future happiness: the fantasy suite invitation.

“I’m not willing to morally put myself out there and he’s doing the same with the other two girls. That doesn’t sit well on my heart,” AshLee said.

Sean convinced her that all he wanted to do was stay up and talk, so Ashley agreed to spend the night with him, so to speak.

Sean had said earlier that he was falling in love with AshLee and, once in the suite, he told her, “I knew from the very beginning that you had a really special heart, and that you were loving and generous and sweet, and we’ve built on it since then, and now we have this really incredible relationship and it’s pretty special.”

Well, special hearts want special things, so AshLee told Sean she wanted “a cushion ring with diamonds all the way around on the band and I believe my ring finger is 6 and a half.”

Maybe that was the beginning of the end, since AshLee would trust Sean to lead her through a cave but not to pick out an engagement ring.

Date No. 3, Catherine: Catherine drew the long straw when it came to her date. Rather than doing things that scared her, she got to hang out with Sean on a junk, drinking, talking and going swimming and snorkelling. And kissing, plenty of kissing.

But then again, Sean had made it clear earlier that Catherine was the woman he turned to for fun, describing her as “a little weird and nerdy and goofy.”

It’s hard to figure out what’s so weird about Catherine. The fact she re-enacted the “king of the world” scene from Titanic at the prow of the junk? The fact she was the last of the three women to describe herself as falling in love with Sean?

Doesn’t sound weird to me, but Catherine was thanking Sean for being able to “handle how weird I am. I seriously have not been this vulnerable or myself with anybody.”

“I love your weirdness,” said Sean.

And as with Lindsay, Sean said he could see Catherine being his best friend, so check that box off.

But was she ready to move to Dallas and settle down and have a family?

Catherine assured Sean she was, despite what her sisters might think, but I found it odd that she was looking away from Sean almost the entire time she made her case.

Sean was convinced, however. And there was much kissing ... in the rain, which made it extra romantic.

Dinner was back at the Anantara Resort and Spa. I guess we could see the writing on the wall for poor AshLee when Sean said that Catherine “gets me better than anyone else” and he could see himself marrying her. “When I’m with her I’m so happy.”

As far as the fantasy suite was concerned, Catherine, like AshLee, had reservations. She told Sean she’d planned to say no to the overnight date because she wanted to be seen as a lady and then she realized it was just about spending extra time with Sean. So she said yes.

Once in the suite, Catherine confessed that she’d never pictured herself with a hunky, beefy guy like Sean.

“I’ve just been made fun of a lot, like, in my life ... just you’re chubby or you eat too much. I’ve honestly never been in a bathing suit more times in my life than with you.”

“You are smoking hot, OK? I’m the lucky one, promise,” said Sean.

And he backed up his words with some passionate kisses in the pool. And then Catherine said, “I want everything with him. I know he’ll treat me like a lady and being intimate tonight is really important.”

Hold up, so does that mean they did more than talk? Guess we’ll never know, since Sean already told host Chris Harrison it was none of his business what went on in the fantasy suites.

The televised portion of the date ended with Catherine saying she wanted Sean to be her husband and “we’re meant to be together.”

The Rose Ceremony: Cue yet another shot of Sean with no shirt on, this time wearing only a towel as he prepared to dress for the rose ceremony.

He said he woke up in the morning knowing who he wanted to send home, but “I know how special she is, I know how much she brings to the table and so part of me thinks you’d be a fool to let that go. It just so happens that my other two relationships are stronger.”

When Sean told Harrison that “she’s one of the sweetest women I have ever met in my life and she is so full of love,” it was clear that AshLee was the unlucky one.

We were reminded that it was at this part of the process that Sean got the heave-ho from former Bachelorette Emily Maynard during her season, and here he was setting up a woman for the same kind of blindside.

“I know she’s about to experience the same thing and unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about it,” Sean told Harrison.

To make matters worse, Sean had to watch video messages from all three women and AshLee’s was the most emotional.

“I can’t imagine one day without you. I can’t imagine walking away and not having you as my partner for life,” AshLee said. “I believe that together we are whole,” she added, fighting back tears. And finally, tearfully, “because of who you are to me I know that I’m no longer broken and ultimately for that I will always love you.”

Yikes, no wonder Sean looked bereft after watching.

Finally, the roses. The first one went to Lindsay and then, after a long pause during which Sean looked down and up, sighed, swallowed and closed his eyes, he gave the second to Catherine.

AshLee fixed Sean with a stony stare. “Just stay here,” she said when he asked to walk her out to the waiting car.

But he followed her anyway and started talking.

“I thought it was you from the very beginning. I felt like our relationship, there was a lot of intensity there and this was honestly the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. I think the world of you. I don’t want you to ever doubt that,” said Sean, as AshLee continued to glare at him.

“I did not want to hurt you,” he added.

“All right,” said AshLee, getting into the SUV without a kiss or hug or word of farewell.She didn’t even cry in the privacy of the car, not right away.

“This wasn’t a silly game to me. This wasn’t about a joy ride and about laughter and joking and having fun,” she said before finally breaking down and hiding her face from the camera.

Sean never really explained why he was letting AshLee go, but she seems to have provided the answer in her own words: for her it wasn’t about having fun, an attribute Sean seemed to value in both Lindsay and Catherine.

Look for AshLee to be one of the main attractions on next week’s Women Tell All episode, Monday at 8 p.m. on OMNI, along with Tierra (although I couldn’t tell from the promo whether Tierra will be there or will just be a topic of conversation).

And the following week is the three-hour season finale.

Expect a proposal, despite the clip we saw of Sean’s mother telling him not to propose to either woman. I’m predicting the winner is Catherine.

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